I once had the pleasure of helping two attorneys (that were married to each other) find a great home. Talk about a detail-oriented couple! At our first meeting, the presented me with a very thorough list of interview questions. In my 9 years of real estate, I've never had to answer so many questions and I really enjoyed the interview.

I started thinking, that if other buyers had this list that they might make better decisions on their hire (which would in turn help our overall profession. (I hate it when I hear a real estate horror story, when it could have been avoided with a proper first meeting interview to gauge the skills, knowledge and experience of the agent).

In Part 1 of this blog, I will post the list of questions. Part 2, I will answer the questions (keep in mind that some of them are specific to the market of the moment. And I will note that in the answer).

I suggest sending this list to the agent before hand and allowing them to do a little preparing before your meeting (also a good gauge of how responsive and motivated the agent is to help you and some of the questions require looking up some past statistics).

Experience Questions:• How many people are you currently assisting in finding a house? • How many buyers will you work with at one time? How many sellers?• Will you be representing other buyers who are looking for homes in the same area andprice range as we are?• How many homes, on average, do you show your buyers?• What is your experience in the locations we are looking at? • What percentage of the homes you've sold or located are in our search area? • Do you specialize in a certain area of town?• Do you have a price-range you specialize in? • How many homes did you sell in the past year as a buyer's agent?• How do you stay up on current trends? Do you take classes or frequently attend training?• How do you stay up on proposed developments that will impact a property?

Price/Financing Questions• How do we know if this is the right time to buy? • Will you help us decide if our desired price range is appropriate? Can you help uschoose a good price range? • How will you help us determine if our down-payment is appropriate?• How can you help us determine if an offer we make is good one? • How will you leverage the best deal for our client?• How will you handle multiple offers? • Tell us about the inspection process? How do we renegotiate the offer if the inspectionreveals a problem? Will you attend our inspection? • What are the average closing costs your buyers have had recently? Are there possiblehidden/ costs we might encounter?

Misc. Questions• How are you compensated? • Will you always be the one showing us houses and contacting the seller's agent?• How accessible are you since we may have to act within hours on a property? How oftenwill we talk to you? • How much notice do you need if we want to look at a home? • What are your negotiation techniques? • How will you search for properties that may not be listed in MLS (those sold by theowner)?•How do you represent us in a for sale by owner situation?• What about foreclosure situations? How do those work?

Final Questions

• What expectations do you have of us as the buyer?• What questions did we not ask?

Laura Ivy Blessing blogs about the Austin, TX known and lesser known happenings with a splash of real estate savvy for today's buyers and sellers. Please call her today to consult and advise you through your next real estate transaction.